reason why the early Christians appropriated and reinterpreted the Hebrew scriptures. They weren’t simply snatching texts away from Jewish interlocutors, but were determinedly understanding Jesus and Christian faith in terms of the creational monotheism of Genesis, the psalms and the prophets. What mattered to them, as of foundational importance, was God’s kingdom coming on earth as in heaven, with all the political and social implications that flowed from that. For this, they needed a strong doctrine